''Crush'' is the second studio album by British electronic musician Sam Shepherd, released under his alias Floating Points on 18 October 2019 by Ninja Tune.

Background and recording

Shepherd began work on the album following a 2017 tour with the xx. Taking inspiration from German

krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...

band

Harmonia In Greek mythology, Harmonia (; /Ancient Greek phonology, harmoˈnia/, "harmony", "agreement") is the goddess of harmony and concord. Her Greek opposite is Eris (mythology), Eris and her Roman mythology, Roman counterpart is Concordia (mythol ...

's 2007 album '' Live 1974'', Shepherd played 30 minute improvisational sets using only a Buchla synthesizer and a

Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electr ...

drum machine. Upon his return to the studio, Shepherd used the same equipment as the basis for recording and completed the album in five weeks. Unlike the debut Floating Points album '' Elaenia'' (2015), ''Crush'' does not feature any live guitars or drums.

Critical reception

''Crush'' received positive reception upon release. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music publications, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 81 based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Shawn Reynaldo of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' awarded the album "Best New Music", saying that the project is "an album of mischievous, melodic, stripped-down electronic music". Dylan Barnabe at ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...

'' noted that although "the sonic explorations undermine the album's overall cohesiveness, ''Crush'' remains a shining example of Shepherd's growth as an artist". In a mixed review, John Mulvey of '' Mojo'' thought that the project was "a decent album, but perhaps not the one some of us were hoping for.".

Accolades

Track listing

All tracks written and produced by Sam Shepherd. Credits adapted from

Apple Music Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...

and Tidal.

Charts

References

External links

* 2019 albums Floating Points albums Ninja Tune albums {{2010s-electronic-album-stub